


Trick or Treat, Baby

by Everren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Couch Sex, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Grumpy Ben Solo, Halloween, Lingerie, Or a good orgasm, Oral Sex, Reylo - Freeform, Smut, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:09:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everren/pseuds/Everren
Summary: Ben Solo is not in the mood to deal with trick or treaters this Halloween. In fact, he’s taken measures to ensure he doesn’t have to. Can Rey, his next door neighbor and lover of all things Halloween, change his mind?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 54
Kudos: 116
Collections: A Fall Reylo Exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RebelJediPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelJediPrincess/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to [ReyloBrit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyloBrit/works) for beta reading this chapter for me! ❤️

_Trick or treat, baby,  
On a night like this.  
Trick or treat, woah, woah,  
And that means a kiss.  
Trick or treat, baby,  
And don't let me miss  
A sweet kiss from you  
On a night like this._

‘Trick or Treat’  
Chuck Berry

* * *

Rey balanced her grocery bag on her knee as she reached up to shut the trunk of her car. It wasn’t easy. The bag was overflowing with Halloween decorations of all shapes and sizes, destined to be added to those already transforming the outside of the white, weatherboarded house she shared with her two best friends. At the bottom of the paper sack, bags and bags of candy created the weight against her leg to counterbalance the odd-shaped bulk of plastic severed arms and one lone witch’s broomstick which protruded from the top. After a moment of reaching and one or two little wobbles, she had the trunk shut and the car locked, and she slid her arms around either side of the bag to carry it up the front lawn, weaving through the obstacle course of pretend tombstones she’d artfully arranged only that morning.

As she often did when she thought no one was watching, her eyes slipped surreptitiously towards the lot next door. The house there was spread over a single floor, unlike the two-storey house she lived in, and clad in dark, grey wood. It belonged to Ben Solo. Rey wasn’t sure what it was about the man, but ever since he’d moved in eight months ago, Rey had found herself obsessed. He had a way of crawling under her skin and agitating her in a way she just couldn’t ignore. 

He was outside at that moment, hunched over something on his lawn, hammering. At first, Rey thought he might be putting up a decoration like the ‘Beware! Keep Out!’ sign she’d poked into the flowerbed near her own front door, but then Ben shifted to one side and she got a good view of what it was he was doing. At once, her jaw dropped.

“You can’t be serious.”

Ben’s head jerked upwards at the sound of Rey’s shout, and his hand flew to his hair, pushing the black waves away from his eyes. He always looked startled when she spoke to him, whether he’d seen her coming or not. Rey just rolled her eyes and shifted her grocery bag onto her hip as she approached.

“You’re not leaving that there tonight.”

Ben seemed to gulp, then frowned and pursed his lips, glancing down at the laminated paper sign he’d just staked into his front lawn: No Trick or Treaters. 

He was bigger than her — taller by a good half a foot —and broad, with shoulders like a rugby player, but he seemed to shrink as Rey drew nearer. After a moment, though, he pulled himself up straighter and said, “Yes, I am.”

“You can’t!” Rey replied, her eyes wide with indignation.

“I can. It’s my land.”

“Fine,” she conceded, “But why would you? Are you no fun at all?” 

His lips pressed tightly together into a pout that made Rey’s stomach wriggle excitedly. She resolutely ignored it.

“I don’t like Halloween,” he said, his whiskey-brown eyes flickering to the floor, then the neatly-trimmed pine bush beside his front door, avoiding Rey’s glare. She gritted her teeth.

“You live in Salem,” she pointed out.

“So?” 

“So… if you don’t like Halloween, wouldn’t it be better to live, like, _anywhere else in the world?”_

“I work here,” he said, and she thought she could see a bristle of irritation run through him, making his chin lift just a little and his shoulders square. “What do you care anyway?”

Why _did_ she care? Why was she so bothered by what Ben Solo did in his own front yard?

The honest answer to that question was too much for her to unpack right then, so she pulled an affronted expression onto her face and looked pointedly from Ben’s house to the ones on either side of it. Both hers and their neighbours’ were spooky wonderlands, an unspoken dare to each intrepid trick or treater to venture closer in search of tasty treats. In fact, there wasn’t a front yard on the street that didn’t have some kind of decoration up. 

Ben’s house, on the other hand, was completely unadorned. It looked dull and lonely and forgotten. It looked sad, somehow. Rey didn’t like it. It seeped out into the rest of the street, leeching away the lighthearted spookiness and casting a gloom over the sense of childlike glee there always seemed to be at this time of year.

Growing up in the English care system, she’d never had the opportunity to really enjoy Halloween as a child — not the way people did in Salem, anyway. A few times, when she’d been young and cute enough, she and some of her friends from the group home had tried to wheedle sweets out of the old dears who lived in the bungalow estate near the park, despite not being able to afford anything other than the cheapest of pound-shop masks to wear with their worn-out hoodies and jeans. When that had stopped working, once they’d grown up enough that their knocks had started being met with twitching curtains and fear rather than candy, they’d sometimes played games of ‘knockdown ginger’ instead, rapping on doors then running as though their lives depended on it, before the houses’ owners could come out and shout at them. She remembered how their lungs had burned with gasps of laughter when they’d eventually stopped and doubled-over to catch their breath. 

Those moments had been among the rare, bright ones in an otherwise glum and lonely childhood. More often than not, Rey had spent October 31st alone in whatever cramped, shared bedroom she was currently calling her home, watching from the window as families in costume passed by below, pumpkin-shaped buckets overflowing with treats from grandparents, aunties and uncles.

Ever since coming to America, Rey had been making up for lost time. She didn’t think there was anything she loved more than the annual magic of Halloween and fall in New England, and she had learned to immerse herself in it fully. She was always first in line at Starbucks each year for a taste of pumpkin spice, she loved wrapping herself up in wool and wellington boots to go kicking through autumn leaves at the Old Burying Point cemetery, and when the aisle full of plastic decorations appeared at Walmart, she always spent a blissful afternoon browsing the weird and corny creations, spending some of her hard-earned savings on spooky ephemera to add to her sizable collection. 

And she wasn’t alone. It seemed like all of Salem threw themselves into Halloween just as enthusiastically as she did. It made her feel like she’d finally found her place in the world. 

Ben’s dismissal of the holiday felt like a dismissal of her, and that bothered her. A lot.

Not that she was going to tell him.

“You’ll give the whole street a bad name,” she said, trying to fight back the flush she could feel rising in her cheeks.

“No, I won’t,” Ben snorted.

“You will.”

Ben took a deep breath, his wide chest rising and falling in a way which drew Rey’s eyes to his well-defined pectoral muscles, not at all hidden beneath the red plaid jacket he was wearing. She blinked just as he sighed, “No one cares what my house looks like.”

“Yes they do,” she said, clearing her throat and looking back up at his face. “I do.”

“Well that’s just too bad.”

Rey’s eyes flashed. She knew Ben was a grump — he’d made no attempt to hide that in the months since he’d moved in. Rey even found it vaguely endearing. He lived his own life, keeping to himself and doting on his pet dog, without wasting time agonising over superficial appearances or being _liked_ . However, part of her had also, perhaps naively, believed that he would care about what _she_ thought. 

Not that they were friends or anything — they’d argued as often as they’d agreed, especially early on when Ben had been an arsehole about the untamed tangle of maple trees and witch hazel bushes that grew in her house’s backyard and had started reaching greedily over the dividing fence into his. Rey had, in turn, told him off for taking up two parking spaces on the road with his enormous, black truck, forcing her to drive halfway down the block for somewhere to leave her beat-up, little, old car whenever he was home. Rey’s housemates had, more than once, had to come outside and split them up to stop their bickering. 

However, despite their rocky start, they’d come to an understanding over the months. A truce which had become more and more steady as they’d grown to know and like each other. Rey and her friends had shown willing by spending a day fighting back branches and brambles until their garden was less of a jungle, and Ben had started making sure his truck was less of an inconvenience (if no less obnoxiously big and shiny). He had even smiled at her once, in early September, when Rey had stopped on her way in from her car to throw his dog’s ball back to him. His long, lovely dimples and the little “thanks” he’d waved back to her with one of those massive hands of his had caught her completely off guard and made her knees a bit weak. 

So maybe they weren’t _friends,_ exactly, but Rey had thought he’d be able to see that this was something she cared about, and moreover, she’d thought that would _matter_ to him.

Fuelled by his rejection, she squared her shoulders. “Take it down.”

Ben looked taken aback by her demand, as if he wasn’t used to people daring to tell him what to do and wasn’t quite sure what the appropriate reaction should be. He seemed to decide pretty quickly, though, hardening his expression and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“No.”

“Why not?” Rey countered, unwilling to give up without a fight. “What’s so bad about a few trick or treaters?”

Ben made a noise of irritation in the back of his throat. He looked as though he wanted to walk away but he didn’t; he stayed, staring her down just as stubbornly. 

“I don’t want a bunch of noisy, snot-nosed kids tramping all over my lawn and disturbing me while I’m trying to watch TV,” he said, sounding exasperated. He was glaring now, the full force of his piercing gaze fixed on Rey, and she could tell by the hard line of his jaw that he wasn’t going to budge. Clearly, a quiet night in front of the TV was more important to him than either the happiness of the neighbourhood’s children _or_ her good opinion. The disappointment that seeped through her was surprising in its intensity.

“You’re a monster,” she said bitterly, shaking her head in disgust.

Ben lifted his chin to look at her down his long nose, his hands falling to his sides in resignation. “Good thing it’s Halloween then. I’ll fit right in.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to [Niennathegrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/niennathegrey/pseuds/niennathegrey) for beta reading this chapter for me! ❤️

* * *

“You will never believe what Ben Solo has just done!”

The front door slammed shut behind Rey as she stormed through the hallway towards the kitchen. Her housemates, Finn and Rose, cast each other a knowing glance. 

They were busy at the work surface, concocting their signature punch — which Finn affectionately called ‘The Eyeball Popper’ and which usually had enough alcohol in it to knock out a baby rhinoceros — ready to take to Kaydel’s that night for their annual Halloween party. 

Every year, the friends took it in turn to host, the party moving from house to house around the group. Rey and Finn had started the tradition five years earlier when they’d first got the keys to their home. It’d still had bare walls and floors then, with just a couple of mattresses laid out on the boards in the bedrooms and only an old, threadbare three-piece suite by way of furniture in the living room. It had been the perfect blank canvas for them to turn into a spooktacular delight, with each room themed around a different terrifying concept: Frankenstein’s lab, a cursed Ancient Egyptian tomb, a man-eating witch’s cottage. 

They’d met Rose that night — she had come along with her older sister, Paige, a friend of Kaydel’s from college, and she’d just never really left. Now, the house was as much her home as it was Rey’s or Finn’s. In fact, it was Rose who’d really made the place feel welcoming. As soon as her name had been added to the lease, she’d injected the house with a much-needed dose of her Southeast Asian sense of style, painting the walls in lovely, earthy tones and bringing in warm, carved woods and natural, dyed fabrics to replace Rey and Finn’s accumulation of mismatched flat-pack furniture. Neither of them had minded in the least. As a pair of unwanted kids who’d found companionship in each other, it was nice to have someone tell them it was finally okay to set down roots and, moreover, to show them how.

Rey’s bag of Halloween loot thumped loudly when she dropped it down onto the honey-brown, teak-wood table in the dining area. She turned, huffing, and placed her hands dramatically on her hips. Finn glanced over his shoulder at her, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, go on then. Tell us. What has Ben Solo just done?”

“He’s put up this sign,” Rey exploded at once. Finn turned back to his punch, shaking his head at the little smirk Rose was desperately trying to hide. “It says ‘No trick or treaters.’ Honestly, he’s such an entitled arsehole! It’s like he thinks the rest of the world exists just to please him.”

“Yes, sweetie,” Rose said, biting her lip and holding the punch bowl steady as Finn poured in a whole bottle of peach Schnapps, making the blueberry-stuffed lychees floating on the surface bob and roll like eyeballs. “You’ve mentioned that before.”

“A few times,” Finn added.

“Well,” Rey said, deflating slightly, “it’s true. He is.”

“I really wish you two would just sleep together already,” Rose mused, taking the empty bottle from Finn’s hands and putting it next to the sink to be recycled. “You know” she shrugged, glancing back and forth between Rey and Finn’s gaping faces so casually that Rey could have sworn she’d just commented on her preference for soya milk over skim instead of suggesting that she, Rey, have _sex_ with their insufferable, grumpy neighbour, “get it out of your system.”

Rey spluttered, her hands falling from her hips before she returned them there, for lack of anything better to do with them. “I do not want to have sex with our neighbour.”

Finn was valiantly trying to contain a grin, but, at that, it broke free with abandon. “Oh, Peanut…” he said, shaking his head. “You totally do.”

Rey couldn’t believe it: her two best friends ganging up on her like this. “I don’t!” she said haughtily. “He’s grumpy and rude and insufferable and—”

Rose let out a giggle. “Tall and manly and brooding?”

Rey stopped, realising she had said that about him once. Or maybe twice. “Well, yes,” she admitted reluctantly, “but—”

“And he has that voice that makes you, and I quote, ‘shiver all over’,” Finn chimed in, while Rose egged him on with a mischievous glance.

“Hey!” Rey said, her eyes widening, her cheeks flushing hotly. “I told you that in private.”

“And you get the impression that he’s thoughtful and intelligent,” Rose continued, deaf to Rey’s indignation at having her own words used against her, “even though he must spend a lot of time at the gym to get a body like that.”

Rey remembered when she’d said those exact words to Rose. They’d been watching — discreetly, she hoped — from their front porch while Ben had been pushing a mower across his front lawn that summer, sweat darkening the neckline of his grey t-shirt, his muscles straining beneath the thin, stretch cotton as he’d manoeuvred the heavy machine back and forth up the gentle slope.

“I mean, that’s just common sense,” she grumbled. “Have you seen the size of—”

“And,” Finn interrupted, “you love seeing how good he is with his dog because people who are kind to animals—”

“Oh, come on,” Rey cut in with exasperation, folding her arms across her chest. “I respect anyone who’s kind to animals. That doesn’t mean I fancy them.”

Behind her, there was the sound of keys in the front door, then a gust of cool air swept through the kitchen-diner as someone came inside. All three of them looked over towards the hallway expectantly.

Poe Dameron stopped short in the doorway, looking confused. “What are we talking about?”

“Just about how Rey wants to bang the grumpy loner guy next door,” Finn shrugged, turning back to his punch with irritating nonchalance. 

Although he didn’t officially live with them, Finn’s boyfriend Poe spent so much time in their house that no one was ever surprised to see him when he turned up unannounced. In the first few months after the boys had started dating, Rey and Rose had grown so fed up of having to stop what they were doing to go and answer the door to Poe at random hours of the day and night that they’d eventually had his own set of keys cut for him. They’d presented them to him on his and Finn’s six-month anniversary along with a card that had read, ‘Welcome to the family. Please shag quietly, put the seat down after you, and don’t eat all the cookies.’

“Oh, right, yeah,” Poe said from the doorway, relaxing as he realised he wasn’t in trouble and starting forward again. He pulled off his leather jacket as he walked, on his way to take up his usual perch on one of the stools by the breakfast bar, and shot Rey a wink. “Any luck with that yet?”

She glared at him in return. “Really? You too?”

Poe shrugged in feigned apology, dipping his hand into the plastic tub of gummy Halloween candy which was already lying open on the countertop, ready for any early trick or treaters.

“Honey,” Rose said, putting down the ladle she’d been using to stir the punch, “it’s really obvious. We get a running commentary on what he’s doing every time you see him.”

“And what he’s wearing,” Poe added.

“And what he smells like,” Finn said pointedly. “Do you remember that one time when he helped jumpstart your car and you—”

“Okay!” Rey exploded, throwing up her hands in surrender. “Okay.” She didn’t need Finn to remind everyone about the way she’d surreptitiously turned her face into Ben’s chest to get a good lungful of his woodsy aftershave when he’d been standing over her, holding up her car’s hood while she’d fiddled with jump leads. “I fancy the neighbour. You’ve made your point. Can we all just drop it now?”

Rose bit her lip against a grin. “Sure. _We_ can drop it.” 

Rey watched as she and Finn exchanged a glance.

“The question is,” Finn continued, picking up the thread, “can _you_?”

Rey gulped. She knew it was true: she found Ben Solo attractive, in a bullish, brutish sort of way, and she maybe did talk about him a little too much, but she liked to think it was just a symptom of the way he seemed to know exactly how to ruffle her feathers. Still, she couldn’t use that to explain why she often lingered at her bedroom window, watching his front yard when she thought he might be coming or going, or why she felt her heart jump excitedly within her chest whenever she ran into him outside on the street.

But he was an arsehole. A big, frustrating, stubborn arsehole, who just so happened to have one or two (or three or four) redeeming qualities. It didn’t mean she wanted to have sex with him, or that she actually _would_ , even if she did. 

Which she didn’t.

Did she?

“I’m going to my room to get myself ready,” she announced, ignoring Finn’s question and turning to flounce back towards the hallway stairs. 

“Is that a euphemism?” Poe asked from behind her, the smirk clear in his voice through a mouthful of candy corn.

“No!” Rey growled over her shoulder, gritting her teeth at the laughter she could hear coming from the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, Peanut,” Finn called in a singsong tone. “If we hear vibrating noises, we’ll just pretend you’re brushing your teeth.”

“Lalala! I’m not listening!” Rey yelled, stuffing her fingers in her ears as she stomped up the stairs, wishing she wasn’t blushing violently… _or_ thinking about the vibrator in the drawer of her bedside table, which she had used to make herself come to the thought of Ben Solo more times than she would ever admit, even to herself.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey flopped down onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow, punching the sides into submissive plumpness. She could still hear the laughter of her friends ringing in her ears and feel the burn in her cheeks. She wasn’t sure whether she was angry, embarrassed, or just damn horny. Why had Finn had to bring up the way Ben smelled? Now it was all she could think about. She hated to guess how many times she’d lain in this very bed after the incident with the jump leads, staring at the ceiling and obsessing over how to describe the scent of his aftershave: deep, spiced, warming, earthy.

  


“Fuck.” Her pillow muffled the expletive.

  


With a groan, she rolled herself over and sat up, toeing off her ankle boots and letting them clatter to the floor. 

  


Her bedroom was just as she’d left it that morning before heading out to pick up her last-minute Halloween supplies: unmade bed, curtains closed, yesterday’s clothes draped over the arm of her chair. On her desk, one of the last remaining blooms of the year had opened up on her potted daylily plant. Each flower only bloomed for a single day before withering and falling. They struck Rey as startlingly beautiful in their impermanence. It seemed a shame to leave this one to live out its whole life in darkness.

  


She shimmied herself to the edge of the bed and stood up, then padded across to the window to draw the curtains. Pale afternoon sunlight streamed in through the open slats of the blinds, bathing the swirling dust motes and vivid red flower on her desk in daylight. 

  


“There you go, little one. That’s better.” 

  


Outside, she could hear the chatter of children passing by. School must have just got out; it was about the right time. In a couple of hours, the light would fade and the streets would come alive with trick or treaters. Some were probably already out and about — early birds catch the candy and all that. 

  


She peered down at the street, then immediately ducked back behind the window frame. Ben was down there, bent over on his front lawn, tussling with his dog over a frayed and muddy rope toy. His plaid jacket was pulled tight across his shoulders and his hair flopped into his eyes. Rey blinked, her chest pressed flat against her bedroom wall as she peeked around the edge of the window frame to watch him. 

  


Not that he would see her all the way up here. She was being stupid. 

  


Even so, there was something freeing about being hidden, about  _ seeing _ without being  _ seen.  _ It gave her permission to just watch for a while as Ben played with the big, tan-coloured pitt bull terrier. 

  


He really was beautiful when he was relaxed like this. All the awkward tension he usually held in his body seemed to have melted away; his massive frame looked solid yet graceful, rather than cumbersome and gangly, as he feinted back and forth. Rey tilted her head to one side and moistened her lips. 

  


Below, Ben wrestled the rope away from the dog — Chewie, Rey thought she’d heard Ben say once — then tossed it across the lawn towards the front porch. Chewie galloped after it, snatching it up and tumbling with it to the ground where he proceeded to gnaw on it. Rey wondered whether that was where he’d got his name.

  


Ben followed, unhooking a leash from around his neck and curling it up into a coil in his wide palm. He glanced down as he passed the sign staked beside his path, and Rey thought she saw him hesitate, but then he carried on up the steps and out of her line of sight. There was a moment of stillness during which Rey kept watching, wondering if he would reappear, then she heard a short, shrill whistle and Chewie jumped up to trot inside with his toy.

  


Rey let out a breath. 

  


No, her friends weren’t wrong: she definitely had a crush on Ben Solo. The heavy thump-thumping currently rattling her ribcage was evidence enough of that. The problem was, she didn’t have a clue what to  _ do  _ about it. 

  


Idly, she reached out a finger and ran it along one of the slats of her blind, collecting dust on its tip. She wasn’t paying attention. She was still looking down at the lawn, thinking, or trying to at least, her eyes glazed over and a frown playing between her eyebrows. 

  


A little gaggle of children appeared on the sidewalk below. They’d obviously come straight from school since they still had rucksacks slung over their backs, but they’d made the effort to pull on wrinkled costumes, and they were carrying plastic bags that already looked half-full of sweets. One was dressed as Iron Man, another as Captain America, and she assumed the one wearing ripped shorts over a pair of lime-green chinos was supposed to be the Hulk. They made a cute, if slightly unoriginal, trio. 

  


Rey watched as they approached Ben’s front lawn. They made it half-way up the path, absorbed in joyful conversation and comparing candy hauls, before one of them noticed the sign. Their little faces fell and Rey grimaced. She felt like throwing open her window and inviting them all over for candy corn and unconditional acceptance. 

Thankfully, they seemed to have been drawn in by the plastic graveyard she’d created on her front lawn, and they were quickly traipsing across the grass and weaving their way through the headstones beneath her window. She pressed her nose up closer to the blind, peering down, as she heard the doorbell ring and Rose call out, “I’ll get it,” from below.

  


Rey’s eyes slid back across to the house next door. Ben wasn’t a bad person, she was sure of it. She tended to get feelings about people — little intuitions — and, after the kind of childhood she’d had, moving around from place to place, from carer to carer, home to home, she’d learned to trust her gut instinct about people. It was true that she wasn’t infallible, people sometimes did surprise her, but she tended to be right far more often than she was wrong, and her gut was telling her that Ben Solo had hidden depth beneath all the surliness. She just didn’t know how to reach it. 

  


He was so closed, so guarded, as if he wore a mask of gruffness as a barrier between himself and the world. Even though his eyes were some of the most expressive she’d ever seen, and his face tended to hint at the shifting currents of his thoughts, she didn’t have the first clue how to get him to open up to her and let her in. Even his grumpy sign was a way of holding people at arm’s length. 

  


The others joked about her lusting after him, but the truth was that she hadn’t even had a proper conversation with him, and he’d lived there eight months. He was almost a complete mystery to her. 

  


She wanted to know him. 

  


She only wished she knew how to show him she was interested, besides surreptitiously gulping down lungfuls of his aftershave whenever she got the chance or tugging on his metaphorical pigtails with her snarky words and insults.

  


Fuck... She’d called him a monster. 

  


A wave of regret washed through her and she lifted her fingers to her mouth to nibble at her nails. She didn’t believe that about him, not at all, but she’d said it, and now it was very possible that he thought she’d meant it. She needed to learn to think before she spoke. And she needed to work out a way to make it up to him.

  


She looked around the room, as though the solution might leap out at her, then she blinked, her gaze snagging on the costume pieces she’d hung up on her wardrobe door earlier, ready for the party that night. 

  


Her beautiful, black crushed-velvet cloak, which had cost her a small fortune on eBay, trailed down to gather on the floor in elegant pools, and her pointed witch’s hat dangled from the hanger on its ribbon at a jaunty angle. She’d been planning to wear her floaty, black, Stevie Nicks dress with them, so she’d still look like an awesome hippie hedgewitch once she inevitably ditched the outer layers of her costume after the first few drinks, but now another idea was forming in her mind.

  


Her heart skipped a beat. It was a bold plan. Too bold, perhaps. Could she do it? 

  


She glanced back out of the window. A light had come on in Ben’s house, spilling a warm, yellow glow out over the quickly-darkening lawn.

  


No trick or treaters, his sign said, but would he still feel the same about Halloween if the treat was for  _ him _ ? 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say there would be 5 chapters? I definitely meant 6. 🥴

  
Ben hummed tunelessly to himself as he carried his beer bottle and bowl of chips into the living room, Chewie circling his feet as if he hadn’t just scoffed his own dinner. The dog was a bottomless pit. 

“Go,” he said, nudging the pitt bull aside with his knee so he could sit down on the couch without getting a wet nose in his food. “Go lay on your mat.” 

Chewie hovered for a moment longer, his black snout quivering in the direction of the chips, before giving a ‘ _hmph’_ and obeying. He made a show of trotting around and around on his fleecy mat until he’d made a satisfactory hollow, then plopped down with a beleaguered sigh. Ben watched, then took a chip and threw it across the room. Chewie caught it in mid-air and gobbled it up happily, raining crumbs onto the rug.

Ben chuckled and ate a chip of his own as he set his beer aside. Big, stupid animal.

He flicked the tv on. He’d been watching the news before work that morning and it was still on the same channel, the little scroll of current affairs passing lazily across the bottom of the screen. Ben didn’t pause to read it; he turned instead to the movie channels. 

Predictably, there were a lot of horror movies showing. He had to move the screen down before he found something in a different genre. Not that he didn’t like horror movies. In fact, he usually tended to prefer stories that were more dark than they were light, but, today, he didn’t need any further reminders about what the date was. He’d had Halloween shoved down his throat for the last month, whether it was the cheesy decorations at the ends of every aisle in the grocery store or the signs for ‘Pick your own pumpkin’ or ‘Haunted house—next right turn’ which he had to pass on his drive to work each day. He was ready for it all to be over for another year, so he could go back to watching horror movies whenever he wanted and not having to cringe whenever he saw the colors orange, purple and black used near each other. 

Luckily for him, Die Hard was just starting—better Christmas than Halloween. He settled back on the couch, the bowl of chips nestled in his lap, to watch it.

John McClane was just arriving at Nakatomi Plaza when Ben noticed Chewie’s ears prick up. A low growl started rumbling in the dog’s throat, his gaze fixed on the front door in the corner of the room. Ben glanced over his shoulder. 

“What is it, boy?”

A sharp knocking rattled the wooden door and Chewie stood up, giving a gruff bark.

“Down,” Ben commanded, giving him a stern look. Chewie grumbled but did as he was told.

Damn kids needed to learn to read.

He picked up his beer and took a gulp, swishing the bubbles around his mouth and washing down the taste of salt as he tried to pick up what was happening in the movie again.

Another series of loud taps had him turning to look incredulously at the door. Chewie started barking again.

“Read the sign!” he shouted, sounding almost as menacing as the dog.

There was a pause, but then another round of knocking rang out and Ben swore beneath his breath. He put aside his bottle and bowl and stood up, giving Chewie a stern look as he told him to stay on his mat. 

He strode around the end of the couch and crossed to the front door, squaring his shoulders as he went and setting his jaw in a hard line.

“It says ‘No—’” he began as he wrenched open the door, already glaring down at whoever was waiting outside. 

The anger melted from his veins at once, the words drying up on his tongue as his mouth fell open in surprise. 

“Trick or treat,” said Rey, the girl from next door, blinking coyly up at him with big, hazel eyes. 

She was illuminated by the golden glow of his porch light, yards and yards of tanned, freckled skin, all wrapped up in a black velvet cloak. A black bra, all straps and lace and not enough fabric, covered her small breasts, a matching pair of panties worn below. Attached to them with suspenders were a pair of silk stockings, which drew Ben’s eyes downwards, all the way to the high, black ankle boots which were planted on his welcome mat. A pointed witch’s hat was perched on top of her head, although that certainly wasn’t where his attention lingered. 

He gulped, speechless and wide-eyed. 

Rey bit her lip, a blush rising to her cheeks. “Trick or treat?” she said again, sounding less certain of herself. 

Ben forced himself to blink, to swallow, to drag his eyes away from her breasts. He cleared his throat. “I, er… I don’t have any candy.”

Rey lifted her eyebrows, giving him an incredulous look. “I didn’t come for candy, Ben.”

He felt hot, roasted by her hungry gaze and the way the neck of his sweater had suddenly become far too tight. His hands grew clammy, his brain panicking about the beads of sweat he could feel beginning to form beneath his hairline, and he suddenly wasn’t sure what to do with his tongue, since it seemed to have grown too large for his mouth. His eyes skittered up and down over her, not daring to alight in any one place for too long. She hadn’t come for candy. She hadn’t come for candy. Think, Ben, think!

“And… I’m starting to think this was a bad idea,” she said after a long moment had passed and Ben still hadn’t managed to formulate words. She looked down at the floor, her eyes wide and embarrassed. “Sorry.” 

She turned and started away, tucking her dark hair behind her ear as she took the porch steps two at a time. 

Panic flooded Ben’s body. He didn’t want her to leave. He might not know what the appropriate response was when your beautiful, fierce, funny, and kind next-door neighbor showed up on your doorstep in lingerie, but he knew he wanted her to stay. 

Shit.

He jerked into motion, lurching after her down off the porch and past the sign staked into the ground beside his path. She was fast—she’d made it half-way across the lawn already even though her heels were sinking into the soft ground with every step—but he quickly made up the distance with a few long, inelegant strides, the wet mud underfoot quickly soaking through his socks to the skin beneath. He didn’t care, didn’t care if he looked like some comical, overgrown daddy-long-legs, he just wanted to stop her and make sure she understood that she was possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, that he’d thought so from the first moment he’d seen her and during every moment since.

He reached forward, catching her hand in his, and tugged her around. She wobbled on the spot, unsteady on her heels, and turned to peer up at him. She looked as though she expected him to tell her off. Instead, he took her cheek in his palm and leaned in, pressing his mouth clumsily to hers. 

She didn’t stop him, didn’t object or pull away—that, at least, was a relief—and he soon felt arms being flung around his neck, yanking him down and closer. He screwed his eyes tight shut as he let go of her hand and face and slid his arms around her instead, beneath her cloak.

Fuck. There was just _so much skin._ He could feel it beneath the whole breadth of his palms where they rested on her back, warm and soft and dimpled with gooseflesh from being exposed to the biting October breeze. He wrapped her tighter against him, tilting his head slightly to give himself a better angle for his lips to part against hers.

And, somehow, she was kissing him back, not slapping his face or throwing some barbed comment into it, like he’d expected her to. Somehow, Rey from next door was kissing him back, running the hot tip of her tongue over his lower lip then gently sucking it between her own, arching her back until he could feel the long, lean length of her pressed firmly against his torso. 

What the fuck? 

How was this happening?

He didn’t know how to process this turn of events. Only earlier, she had been berating him about his damn sign, and now here she was, kissing him in a way he hadn’t been kissed in years. True, she didn’t seem to have found him quite as irritating over the last couple of months as she had when he’d first moved in—sign incident notwithstanding—but, surely, he could never have foreseen this. 

That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t imagined it. He had. Often. In fact, it was one of his favorite daydreams: him, pulling her to him when she was in the middle of telling him off for some stupid thing he’d said or done to piss her off, swallowing her words with the kind of kiss that would make her forgive the way he got flustered and awkward and inevitably put his foot in his mouth every time he was around her. But it was a fantasy. A very nice fantasy, but a fantasy, nonetheless. Girls like Rey didn’t kiss idiots like him. 

Except she _was_ kissing him now, hungrily, as though she had been dreaming about this happening just as much as he had. 

A gust of wind lifted Rey’s cloak, making it billow out behind her. Ben felt a full-body shiver pass through her, and she pulled away from his mouth, making herself small and nuzzling closer to his chest.

He blinked. opening his eyes, and peered cautiously down at her.

She bit her lip and lifted a hand to hold her witch’s hat on her head as she tilted her chin up to look at him. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he replied, his voice rough and thick, a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth.

“Mommy, I can see that lady’s butt!” 

Down on the path, a little boy dressed as a zombie was pulling excitedly on his mother’s sleeve, looking up at them. Rey glanced over just as the woman gasped and yanked her son away, a hand wrapped over his eyes to stop him from staring at Rey’s beautiful but very exposed ass cheeks.

“Oh, fuck,” she groaned, letting go of him and reaching behind her to pull her billowing cloak down, wrapping it tightly around her. The motion treated Ben to another glorious look at her tanned, toned body before it was covered up by plush, black velvet.

“Do you, er—” he started, lifting his hand to run through his hair while the other found its way into the front pocket of his jeans. He glanced back at his house, where Chewie was waiting patiently in the yellow rectangle of the doorway, his back end wagging. “Do you want to come inside?” 

The question sounded positively eloquent for him where Rey was concerned and was far bolder than he was used to being, but he thought it might kill him if he had to watch her walk away from him now, so it seemed like being brave was his only workable option. He looked back around at her again, nervously meeting her eye.

She sucked in her lower lip, the weight of the invitation hanging in the air between them, then she gave him a small but heartstopping smile and nodded, “Yes, I’d like that.”


End file.
